em while waking, either in intellect or in
sensation. What even drunken men do, they do not do with the same
deliberate approbation as sober men. They doubt, they hesitate, they check
themselves at times, and give but a feeble assent to what they see or
agree too. And when they have slept off their drunkenness, then they
understand how unreal their perceptions were. And the same thing is the
case with madmen; that when their madness is beginning, they both feel and
say that something appears to them to exist that has no real existence.
And when their frenzy abates, they feel and speak like Alcmaeon;--

But now my heart does not agree
With that which with my eyes I see.

But even in madness the wise man puts restraint upon himself, so far as
not to approve of what is false as if it were true. And he does so often
at other times, if there is by chance any heaviness or slowness in his
senses, or if those things which are seen by him are rather obscure, or if
he is prevented from thoroughly examining them by the shortness of the
time. Although the whole of this fact, that the wise man sometimes
suspends his assent, makes against you. For if there were no difference
between his perceptions, he would either suspend it always or never.

But from the whole character of this discussion we may see the worthless
nature of the argument of those men who wish to throw everything into
confusion. We want judgment, marked with gravity, consistency, firmness,
and wisdom: and we use the examples of men dreaming, mad, or drunk. I
press this point, that in all this discussion we are speaking with great
inconsistency. For we should not bring forward men sunk in wine or sleep,
or deprived of sense, in such an absurd manner as at one time to say there
is a difference between the perceptions of men awake and sober and
sensible, and those of men in a different condition, and at other times
that there was no difference at all.

They do not even perceive that by this kind of argument they are making
out everything to be uncertain, which they do not wish to do. I call that
uncertain which the Greeks call {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. For if the fact be that there is
no difference between the appearance that a thing presents to a madman and
to a person in his senses, then who can fee